


She is Chloe Jane Decker, she’s got this

by whopooh



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Chloe explains her trip to Rome, Chloe learns she doesn't have to be alone, Chloe's POV, F/M, I just love these characters very much and think they make great friends, Post S4, aftermath from Lucifer's departure, friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 12:34:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20309575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whopooh/pseuds/whopooh
Summary: Chloe has always managed everything. Ever since she was a child, she’s been the strong, sensible one. But after Lucifer left for Hell, she wonders if she can anymore.





	She is Chloe Jane Decker, she’s got this

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to explore Chloe's view of herself, of everything that happens, her relationship to her friends - and why she went to the Vatican, of all places. So this happened! 
> 
> Also, someone has to tell Chloe the things happening are not her fault. Luckily, she has friends for that.

Lucifer is gone. 

Chloe is still, standing on the balcony, wanting to keep the moment for a little longer. The moment when she saw him for the last time, kissed him for the last time, and finally was allowed to see his wings. Glowing, ethereal; white as the purest snow; white as innocence and arsenic. 

She has no idea how long she has stood there, unable to do anything but breathe. The silence is almost eerie and finally she has to move, to assure herself she hasn’t frozen to ice, that she is still a living and breathing human being. She enters his home again – the place with all its intense contradictions, just like its owner. Curiously sparse while at the same time luxurious. Equally parts personal and void of personal knick-knacks. A private place but with an open bar and no doors. 

She remembers the first time she visited; how odd she found his home. Now, it’s so familiar she hardly even notices – it’s just him, the way he is. Except now it’s abandoned, silently bleeding out its life and energy, to become still. She is assaulted by the memory of coming here to find all the furniture hung with sheets. The thought brings new tears to her eyes – is that something she is supposed to do now? Cover up his things, sweep them like corpses, admit this is a dead place, and its owner as good as dead? She breathes quickly, shallowly, to try to keep herself in control, nails digging into the palm of her hand.

She sits down on his couch, mumbling to herself. “I am Chloe Jane Decker, and this is nothing to be afraid of.” It’s an old habit, her way of reassuring herself when she’s freaking out. “I am Chloe Jane Decker, and I’ve got this.” 

She had started doing it already as a child. Her mother taught her to state her name clearly if someone asked who she was when she visited on the film set. “I am Chloe Jane Decker and I am here with my mother, Penelope Decker.” She can’t count how many times she got to say it, how many times she got to sit and patiently watch and wait and think. In the dark at home alone, or half abandoned in a corner of a party her mother attended, she would use it to make herself feel strong: “I am Chloe Jane Decker, and I am not afraid of the dark. I am Chloe Jane Decker and I am not afraid of that man who looks like he’s very drunk. I am Chloe Jane Decker and I can take care of myself.” When her father died: “I am Chloe Jane Decker and I will manage this.”

Whatever happened, she knew she had that one rock solid thing to count on: herself, and the way she could deal with things.

She doesn’t use her middle name much anymore, only this way. It still passes through her head weekly – when she’s taking chase of a suspect, gun drawn; when she’s called to talk to Trixie’s principal about her daughter; when her partner suddenly disappears on her or shows up looking like a homeless, self-hating magician. “I am Chloe Jane Decker and I’ve got this.” 

She will never forget the way Lucifer said her middle name on the beach, her surprise that he knew it, and how he unwittingly proved just how well he knew her. “Impossibly boring,” he’d called it. Chloe doesn’t mind. Jane might be a reliable, old-fashioned name, but it was her grandmother’s, it was persevering Jane Eyre and clever Jane Austen and wonderful Jane Fonda. She has always rather liked it; it’s stubbornness somehow matching her own. Lucifer calling it boring while looking at her with_ those eyes_ and _that smile_, the softest she can imagine – he had made it sound like a badge of honour, and she accepted it.

“I am Chloe Jane Decker and I’ve got this.” She can’t count he amount of times she has murmured that. Already at ten, she had decided to stop being a child of affectation and beauty, to quit taking pride in her looks and people admiring her sweetness and compliance – everything her mother had taught her to be. Penelope, always nagging her about her clothes and her lack of smiles, made her decide to not bother about appearances too much, in herself or others. It had taken some time to cultivate, but she had done it – refusing to be impressed by façades, smoothness, looks, or wealth, instead searching for the core of people, seeing what they really were. That intuitive streak had become a useful tool in her line of work, her most trusted one. Not even Palmetto had managed to take it away from her for too long. She might not have a religion or a spiritual worldview to answer all questions, but she had this trust, this belief in her judgement, grounding her. 

And for some reason, _she_ is the one who befriended the devil. The devil – master of façades, smoothness, looks, and wealth, a being practically clouding himself in appearances and assumptions. Lucifer had once claimed to be like an onion, an irresistible one, and it was true. There were so many layers to him, so many evasions, so many attempts to be taken for what he wasn’t, to prove to himself that he really was unlovable. It could make a mere human dizzy trying to navigate. But there was also so much truth, and kindness, and seriousness to him, beneath it all. 

She had told him again and again that she didn’t see evil in him, didn’t see him as the devil. There was a time, after she saw his other face, when she believed he had fooled her completely – that she had believed in a clever disguise, and he really was an evil, immortal being who decided to just play with her for a while. How could the whole world history be wrong and she right? What right did she have to ignore these stories, after she had failed so utterly to see who he was? How could she ever claim to be good at reading people when she didn’t notice she had Satan right beside her? Her inner compass was spinning wildly, and for all she now feels like a moron about it, she didn’t pick up on the dubious core of her new acquaintance Father Kinley. 

Now, she knows better. She knows that even if she didn’t reach the truth of him being a celestial being, she still reached the truth of him. She found his core of kindness and love and humour and care, and that was the important part all along. She knows him, better than anyone. Yes, better than Eve – that overly prideful claim she had made once, but by now it’s true. She knows him, just as she knows herself. There is no way anyone can shake her from her foundations this time. “I am Chloe Jane Decker, and I know my partner.”

As a child, she had sat at her father’s desk in his first precinct – the one he worked at before he transferred here – just as Trixie regularly does now. She had learned her lesson from following her mother to work. At the questions from her dad’s colleagues she piped up “I am Chloe Jane Decker, and I am here with my father, John Decker. He asked me to sit here and wait for him. He said I could draw with his pens until he comes back.”

Now, some 27 years later, she sits on a couch in a penthouse, far above the city she lives in, lights from the skyline the only thing illuminating her surroundings. She stares out the window through her tears and mumbles to herself “I am Chloe Jane Decker and I can manage this. Even though I love the devil.”

_Even though the devil loves me. _

_Even though he just left._

_I am Chloe Jane Decker and I’ve got this._

She has no idea how long she has been sitting in the couch, unseeing. The tears have dried on her cheeks, and makes her skin feel stiff. She takes a deep breath and steels herself. Like she always does. 

“I am Chloe Jane Decker, and I can get my ass off this couch. I can walk to the elevator and drive home. I can make dinner for Trixie and do the dishes and go to sleep. I can manage to not think about how life is in Hell.”

The last one is a lie, of course, but the other statements are all possible to achieve. On the fourth attempt, they even become true.

***

Chloe doesn’t sleep that night, and she doesn’t manage to go to work the next day. She barely manages to send Trixie off to the school bus and call in sick before falling back into her bed. 

Her tears seem to have run out, so she simply lies there and stares into the wall. Her head is filled with all the things she did and didn’t do, the things he said and didn’t say. The demons’ rising, how she barged into the Mayan because she couldn’t stand to not know what had happened, and the way she managed to save Charlie together with Eve – and how close they were to failing. Lucifer sending the demons away with a command. Lucifer saying goodbye on the balcony. Lucifer in Hell, and her imagination has nothing to go on here, so the scenery gets more and more wild and frightening every time she thinks about it.

She has just succeeded in finally rising and walking down to the kitchen when Trixie comes home.

“Mommy?” Trixie says from the door, and as she sees her mother, she repeats it again, more concerned. “Mommy? Are you sick?”

“Hi, Monkey,” Chloe says, stroking back a lock from her face and realising she hasn’t checked the mirror today; she has no idea what she looks like, but judging from Trixie’s expression, it’s not good. “No, I’m not sick, baby. I’m just sad. I took the day off today.”

“Did someone die?” 

Trixie’s voice is worried. Charlotte’s and Pierce’s deaths are still fresh for her, and she knows her parents’ work is dangerous.

“No, honey, no one died.”

“Did someone steal Charlie?”

Chloe has no recollection of when Trixie might have heard something about that, but yesterday is rather a blur.

“No! No. Someone tried to steal Charlie, but we managed to stop them before they could get away. Everything is fine.”

Trixie watches as her mother haphazardly pretends like she knows what she’s doing with the mushrooms and tomatoes that are somehow laid out before her.

“You don’t look fine,” Trixie states, matter-of-factly. Her jaw is set, her hands on her hips.

Chloe looks at her daughter and realises this is not something she can hide from her. And she doesn’t really want to, either. 

“You’re right, Monkey,” she sighs. “I’m not fine.” 

She takes a few steps and crouches down before Trixie, like she usually does when she wants to talk seriously with her. _She is Chloe Jane Decker, and she’s got this._ “I’m not fine. I will be, though, I promise. I’m just really, really sad right now.”

“Did Lucifer do something?”

Chloe smiles at her clever daughter, and nods.

“Lucifer had to go away. He had to go home. Maybe he won’t be able to come back, ever.”

Trixie doesn’t say anything, she just leans forward to hug her mother, really hard. Like mommy hugs Trixie when Trixie is sad about something. She knows she probably won’t get any dinner today, and that mommy won’t help her with her homework, and she will probably flunk her math test on Friday, but she doesn’t really care. 

She knows how much a hug like that helps, and she knows she is a very, very good hugger.

***

The next morning, Chloe has been awake for two hours before she realises that she hasn’t even moved position. She must have slept a little, and now she’s staring into the ceiling unseeing. Trixie made breakfast and caught the school bus all by herself. Chloe feels vaguely guilty and vaguely proud at the same time, but she realises she can’t behave like this. She can’t live like this. She must get a grip of her life again.

She rises and walks into the bathroom, making herself somewhat presentable, before driving to Linda’s. She knows what she has to do.

It’s Amenadiel who opens the door for her. He looks pleased to see her.

“Is Maze in?” she asks, hopeful. She didn’t want to bring Trixie. She doesn’t want Maze to feel pressured, and she doesn’t want Trixie to be devastated if Maze says no. 

“She’s not home yet,” Amenadiel says, and with one look at Chloe’s face, he ushers her inside and into a couch. “What happened, Chloe?”

She tells him of Lucifer’s departure, of the finality of his goodbye. When she starts to cry again, Amenadiel is silent for a long moment.

“Finally doing the right and dutiful thing, isn’t he? The thing I used to nag him about constantly, the thing he would refuse me in the most infuriating way possible,” he says, contemplating. “Of course, he waits until I don’t think it’s the right thing to do anymore. How else would he be Luci?”

Amenadiel’s shake of the head makes her smile, all while her eyes water. It does sound an awful lot like Lucifer. Then she turns serious.

“I hate that father Kinley’s scheme was fulfilled after all,” she says, voice tight. 

For her inner ear she can still hear Lucifer’s hurt exclamation:_ How could you do that to me? To me?_ His question is stuck in her inner loop, together with his last words to her, _My first love was never Eve. It was you, Chloe, it always has been._

“It’s all my fault, isn’t it?” she continues. “I did manage to banish Lucifer to Hell in the end, just as Kinley asked me to, even if it wasn’t the way he had envisioned.”

“No,” Amenadiel says, laying a hand on her shoulder. “No, Chloe, you can’t think anything if this is your fault. He made a choice – he was forced to make a choice. The blame isn’t yours. He wanted to protect you, and Charlie too.”

She makes a movement as if to speak, but he continues.

“We barged into your life with all this–” he glances upwards, struggling to find the right word “–all this celestial nonsense, forcing you to deal with angels, and demons, and the devil. This is all on us.”

“But I–”

“No, Chloe. Believe me.” 

She looks into his earnest eyes. He has such a way of calming her, of making her feel like everything will be alright. She wonders if this is his angelic power, just like Lucifer has desire. Somehow, she does believe him. She is just a small pawn in a big game, she is just one human being. She can’t take it all upon herself, even if that is always her first reaction. _I am Chloe Jane Decker, and there is no way I can be supposed to manage this_. She tries the thought out. It feels good, like a stone falling off her chest. At the same time, when her guilt disappears it just gives her more room for mourning. Mourning that man, so unlike his brother – agitated, talkative, always moving, running wherever his nervous energy takes him. 

No, she thinks. That’s not fair to him. He can be very earnest and calm too. The thought of Lucifer not having the opportunity to do anything at all, being forced to instead be in Hell, makes her choke. 

“At least he didn’t run off to Vegas,” she tries to joke.

Amenadiel laughs, in that reassuring way he has. 

“At least he didn’t do that,” he agrees. She can see he’s on the brink of saying something more, when the door opens with a bang. 

Maze takes three steps inside before she sees the visitor and stops in her track.

“Decker,” she acknowledges cooly. “Amenadiel. Don’t let me interrupt you.”

“I’m actually here for you,” Chloe says, rising to her feet. 

Amenadiel takes a quick look at them and claims he can hear Charlie crying, leaving them to themselves.

The two women look at each other, apprehensively, before Chloe finds the courage to talk.

“I… I wanted to ask if you’d like to move back,” she says.

Maze’s eyebrow rises as she’s watching her, deliberating. A knife materialises in her hand and she flicks it back and forth lazily, like she usually does when she needs to think. Or when she wants to scare someone.

But Chloe is not scared. All those fears she got over what feels like ages ago; she can only remember them as faint shadows of emotions now. She is not afraid of her friend any more than she is afraid of the love of her life. Maze might be a demon and she may have a very special relation to knives, but she is also a big, beating heart dressed in tight, black leather. 

“Why would I move back, Decker?” Maze says, all spiky and cold. “It’s not like you ever wanted me there.”

Chloe is not deterred; she can see through her and her uncaring air. She knows Maze. For all her demonic ways, rash actions, and slightly odd ideas about people, Maze is one of the most loyal persons Chloe has ever known. They may have both done things the other felt like betrayal, but they’re past that. She can’t explain how she knows this so thoroughly, she just does, all the way down into her gut. She remembers when Maze was hurting, and everyone – including Lucifer – believed she was a murderer. Chloe never did; she was the one defending Maze and trying to reach out to her, realising her friend was in pain. And she was right. 

The past months with distance between them have been torturous. 

“You know that’s not true, Maze. I do want you.” 

Chloe pauses. She is done with trying to manage everything on her own. She is done with telling people she is fine. _She is Chloe Jane Decker, and she hasn’t got this, not at all._

“It’s not just that. I need you, Maze. And Trixie most definitely does.”

Maze flicks her knife again, looking pointedly at Chloe. The detective doesn’t even flinch. 

“You really mean that.”

Chloe smiles tentatively. 

“I do. I can’t manage on my own. I don’t even _want_ to manage on my own. And you must be cramped here, with Linda and Amenadiel and the baby. We miss you like crazy.”

She can see Maze is surprised by her earnestness. She is too, if she’s entirely honest. It seems Chloe Jane Decker is not too proud to do some pleading.

“And you know, the whole apartment is in dire need for some inappropriateness,” she adds. “It’s far too dull. There haven’t been any new knife holes for ages.”

The smile on Maze’s face goes from zero to one hundred in the span of a second.

“You can trust me on that, Decker.”

When Chloe finally leaves Linda’s place, it’s with several packages of cooked food that Linda forces her to take. Two days later, Maze moves back in. The overjoyed scream Trixie makes when her friend stands in the doorway, her arms full of boxes, a lamp, and a sex swing, will stay with Chloe forever.

***

It’s a Saturday evening. Trixie is with Dan and his parents over the weekend, and both Chloe and Maze are home. 

During the past several weeks that has occurred far more seldom than one would think, but between police work, a shoot-out, bounty-hunting, checking in on Lux, tribe nights, evenings with Trixie, babysitting Charlie, and one memorable teacher-parents conference where Maze showed up as Trixie’s ‘second parent’, their schedules have been full. Life has a way of rebuilding itself, and Chloe has started to feel like she has found a new normal. Work is fine, even if she misses her partner immensely. Dan is getting his anger under control and even manages to offer a listening ear now and then. Ella is lightening up her days with her sweetness and enthusiasm. The new lieutenant is kind of alright. There is a large hole in her life, but she’s living around it. With a little help from her friends, she’s managing. She’s got this.

Chloe offers to cook dinner and while she’s busy at the stove, Maze picks out a good wine from her collection. She takes the cork in her teeth and pries it open in a swift movement.

“You know, you really should get laid, Decker,” Maze says, playfully nudging her with her shoulder. “He’s in Hell – forever or who knows for how long – and you only have one lifetime. Don’t waste it.” 

Chloe looks at her and suddenly starts to cry, right over the frying pan. Damn it, she never used to be so prone to tears before; just as so many other things in her life, that seems to have happened because of the Devil. _I am Chloe Jane Decker and who am I kidding? I haven’t got this at all._

Maze fidgets with the bottle.

“Right, right – not wanting to have sex with strangers, especially not when in love with a person. Linda has told me tons of times, but I never seem to remember!” She rolls her eyes at herself.

Chloe smiles through her tears. 

“I know you want to cheer me up, Maze, I know. It’s just that – it’s just that you remind me of the whole desperate hopelessness of my entire life.” 

She smiles wistfully at her demon friend, drying away the tears. It has been weeks, no months, and noone has managed to get in touch with Lucifer, not even Amenadiel. She hasn’t been able to think of anything she can do, and she is so used to _doing_ things, to _make_ things better. The inaction is killing her. She has no idea how he is. If he is okay, if it’s even possible to be remotely okay when in Hell. Maze has said it is, or at least that it used to be, but that Lucifer probably is in Hell both literally and figuratively right now. Demons are nothing if not honest.

Maze looks at Chloe, tilting her head in that way she has in common with Lucifer – that way that always reminds Chloe they’re not human. 

“You know he would want you to live your life, right? He wouldn’t want to stand in the way of your happiness,” Maze says.

“You’re not helping!” Chloe says, laughing while new tears are threatening to spill. 

“Okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Maze says, raising her hands in defeat. “I never know what to say to humans.”

“Oh, you’re doing quite fine, Maze. Most of the time,” Chloe ribs her, smiling at her affronted look. Sometimes, Maze is like a cat who’s insulted for being told she is not a human; Chloe realises, with a sudden constriction in her chest, that she loves her for it.

“I’m okay, really,” she continues, turning back to the stove to finish the cooking. “You just took me by surprise.”

She serves the meal in silence, and Maze pours them large glasses of wine. After a few bites, Maze eyes her again.

“You know, Decker, talking about surprises. I never understood why you went all the way to the Vatican, to find that crazy priest. Surely there’s plenty of holy men here in LA?” She rolls her eyes at the word ‘holy’. “And not all of them so hateful towards the devil.”

“I know, right?” Chloe says, swilling her glass of wine. It’s a reasonable question; she has thought it herself, many times. She takes a deep breath before continuing. “Well, I couldn’t just go to the liberal churches, or the synagogue, where they’d just tell me he was a metaphor, could I? If I was to get any answers at all, I needed someone who actually believe in the devil as an entity. And I just... I couldn’t face going somewhere around here – people would think I was crazy, maybe not even allow me to keep on working. It was all just a mess. I had a vague idea I needed to talk to someone.” She gestures with her glass, almost spilling some red wine before straightening it. “And then we went through Europe, to get away – I always wanted to go as a kid, and I even planned a route over 20 years ago, and we just followed it. And when we were in Rome, I just realised... the Vatican is right there. They must be the most hardcore believers I could find. If anyone can help me, it must be them. So, we stayed in Rome for a bit.”

Maze’s gaze is intent. “So, Trixie picked up a taste for gelato, and you found one of the few clergymen in existence who actually believe the devil is real and in LA?”

Chloe swallows.

“Yeah. It sounds odd when you think about it, doesn’t it? First, I pick up the devil, and then I find a devil believer? I mean, I’m just an ordinary single mom cop from California.” _I am Chloe Jane Decker, and I really haven’t got this,_ her mind supplied.

“I think we can skip ordinary by now, Decker. You are badass, in your own way.” 

Chloe smiles at the compliment, before continuing her story.

“We were there for ten days, maybe, and he just... got to me. Kinley. It all made sense, hearing it from him. The devil is all the bad things you can dream up. He doesn’t really care; he just does things for his own gain and amusement. You know how Lucifer is, how he always seems to make everything about himself?” 

“Yeah, he’s a narcissistic dick a lot of the time,” Maze nods over her plate. “Linda taught me that word,” she adds proudly.

“What, ‘dick’?” Chloe responds, and they both laugh. Then Maze chews thoughtfully.

“I used to love that about him,” she says. “In Hell. When he made things all about himself somehow everything seemed grander, more important, more beautiful. He wasn’t a demon like the rest of us. He was an angel and a king. Hell can be so petty and short-sighted, but Lucifer had a larger vision.”

Chloe breathes quietly, she has wanted to ask Maze about her past almost since the first time they met, but it has never seemed to be a good time for it.

“How did you actually become friends in the first place?” she asks tentatively.

“Friends?” Maze snorts. “You don’t have friends in Hell.” 

At Chloe’s surprised look, she continues. 

“I was his closest ally, his right-hand woman. I pledged my allegiance and he could always trust me, almost more than he could trust himself. I stopped several attempts at his life. I was his main torturer. His most favoured demon.”

Chloe tries so hard to understand, even if she has no context about Hell.

“How did you become that?”

“He was the first person who really saw me for who I am. He saw my potential. I am very strong, and very quick,” Maze said, straightening her posture pridefully. “But I’m also clever and know how to stop myself. You may not believe it, but I was one of the most tempered demons down there. I don’t kill thoughtlessly; I know how to stop.”

Chloe nods, thinking back to that time in a garage, early in their acquaintance, when Maze had showed up and disarmed a whole gang in front of her eyes. Everyone had gotten hurt, but no one had died. 

“I… don’t even know how Hell works. Are there many demons? How did he even find you?”

“There’s a lot of demons, of different orders. I am of the Lilim, and we’re said to be the brightest, because we’re part human. – It’s true, by the way. We’re definitely the brightest. Just think of stupid Dromos.” 

Maze empties her glass and refills it before continuing. 

“I won a prestigious contest of combat – it’s a bit like the gladiator games you used to have here on earth – and Lucifer was in the audience. He saw me win, and he also saw that I didn’t kill my final opponent. I suppose that impressed him.”

There is a proud note in her voice. Chloe nods, trying to picture it all in her head. The king watching a game and picking out the winner to come to work with him.

“And I’ve always liked to play. He didn’t find much opportunity for that in Hell, but I could give it to him. Outside _and_ inside the sack,” she adds, a bit pointedly, but Chloe is so beyond jealousy when it comes to the king of Hell nowadays, she only smiles. “I loved to rile him up so his eyes would glow.”

Chloe nods and adds without though, “He’s so hot like that, isn’t he?”

Maze snorts at her interjection and nods. 

“He sure is. But do you really think so? I thought you just wanted him human and soft and weakened? _Domesticated._” The last word can’t pass her lips without a sneer.

“No! No. I... I want him to be everything he is.”

Maze contemplates her for a little while, taking a deliberately long sip of her wine.

“Really?”

“Okay, a little less of provoking people to punch him would be good,” Chloe admits. “And less illegal drugs. But yeah. I can’t just pick out 30 percent of him, can I? He is all of those things.” 

It hurts a little, talking about him as if he’s still here, or as if he could come back, when most of her solitary time she is thinking about how he’s so completely beyond her reach. But somehow, it also helps. 

“And I do love him for it. For everything.”

“Even when he’s whiny and paranoid?” Maze asks. Chloe raises her eyebrow and their eyes meet. “Well, yeah, okay, I guess people usually _are_ out to get him,” Maze concedes. “Maybe he can’t help that part.”

“How about you, Maze?” Chloe asks. “You are here on your own now. Do you wish you were in Hell?”

“I’m not on my own, Decker. Once all I had was Lucifer, but that was a long time ago. He’s just one of my friends – my oldest, for sure, as well as one of the more annoying. But I’ve got so many more people in my life now.” She looks Chloe over, completely unsubtly. “You fit that bill rather nicely, actually. You are just as annoying as him.”

“What?” Chloe snorts. “I am not annoying!”

“Oh, Decker, you’re just so sensible I could get annoyed at you every day,” Maze smiles. “But you do make great food. Not to mention spawns.”

Chloe laughs again.

“I’m not that sensible!”

“Prove it!” Maze tilts her head. “Drink up and let’s go out.”

***

And so it happens that this particular Saturday night, a detective and a demon spend the night in a night club, burying any sadness or longing they may have deep down to drink vodka and dance until dawn, when they manage to stumble home and crash, one on the couch and one in her bed. 

And so it also happens that when the Devil finally returns from Hell, on a Sunday morning – after having struggled to find a way to keep peace in the region without having to be there himself; after having flown to his penthouse and taken a very hot, very long shower and shaved meticulously; after having dressed himself in a three-piece suit with a perfectly matching pocket square; after having caressed the piano that he’s missed so intensely and drawn out a few notes from it, not to mention downed a few fingers of whiskey for courage – he arrives to Chloe’s house to find a very hungover detective lying sloppily on the couch, her hair a mess, and dressed in what can only be called an abomination to fashion.

She may have had hundreds of daydreams about how Lucifer would come back, and hundreds of nightmares as well, but when he actually does, there is no dramatic twist and no immediate proclamations of undying love. There is no surprise appearance on a crime scene and no summoning of demons to find him.

Instead, they stare at each other for several moments. Lucifer’s first words to her, after having taken his long strides to the side of the couch, is “Detective! Are you dying? Am I’m too late?” And Chloe’s first words to him are “I’m not dying, Lucifer, I’m just hung-over. Maze dared me to not be sensible yesterday.”

When she sees his mouth starting to form an “oh”, she decides she doesn’t give a damn about her messiness, or all those dreams about what she would say if he ever showed up. She just grabs him by his lapels and pulls him down to kiss him, soundly.

_She is Chloe Jane Decker, and she’s got him._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to FlowerFiend for betaing!
> 
> Also, I took the liberty of using some of my ideas about Maze in Hell, from my earlier Maze-centric fic ["She is Mazikeen"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18248378).


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